


Flotsam and Jetsam

by crowind



Series: Problem Nine And Two [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 11:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11356377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowind/pseuds/crowind
Summary: Even adrift on land, once a child of Whirlpool, forever a child of Whirlpool. Even if none of Mito's descendants followed her.(A collection of drabbles set in the same continuity.)





	1. children of the sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito, Tsunade, and growing up and leaving too quickly.

Mito found the babies in the back garden. Following the cry that pierced twilight, out of the old oak tree that Hashirama hadn’t made. The baby was wailing because it was cold, or hungry, or both; the older had yet to grow out of the habit. Neither were hurt. 

“Tsuna-chan,” called Mito gently. The girl started, but she was too well-trained to fall out of the tree. No, not well-trained; all the talent and indulgence her husband could have given. The pain of his absence didn’t hurt less with the years. Mito said, “Tsuna-chan, is that you up there, with your brother? I was sure I had a pair of grandchildren, not cats.” 

Tsunade peeked from behind the boughs. She had the grace to look sheepish. “Aw, Baa-chan. He wouldn’t stop crying, so I took him here, like Otou-chan used to. But he still won’t stop crying. Babies are so stupid.” 

“Can you climb down?” The sulky silence was deafening with the baby’s cry. Nawaki seemed set to inherit the famed Senju vitality. “Well, then. Look for a seal on the trunk. Mind the baby.” 

“I’m not gonna drop him!” Tsunade shuffled along the branch for a while, then, “Found it! Do I just put my chakra on it?” 

“You will not ‘put your chakra’ into unknown seals,” Mito said sternly. It was the first lesson drilled into every child of Uzushio. “But since this was your mother’s, go ahead. It will release a wind strong enough to buoy you down to earth.” 

The last word barely leaved her lips before Tsunade did so, and made a surprised noise as a powerful storm, all chakra and localised, blew beneath her. She hesitated, then stepped off the branch. She didn’t quite walk down the air, but it was a smooth and slow fall, as though through gelatin. 

It was also what was needed to calm the baby. Still awed, Tsunade handed over an exhausted and quiet Nawaki. “That was reckless. What if you had injured yourself, or the baby? You should have sought me.” 

Tsunade pouted, mumbling a not-apology. She changed the subject without preamble. “So Okaa-san made that seal? All by herself?” 

“She used to climb this tree as a child. At sunrise, or sunset, with a pencil and a paper in hand, drawing until she couldn’t see her work anymore. She has a good eye, and steady hands. And a keen memory. She finds the height more calming than inspiring, I suspect. She draws what she sees, and what no one sees. She would not let anyone see it, not your grandfather, not I.” But she would have shown them to Tobirama, Mito reflected, briefly and no further, for the fox was stirring. 

“But she came here everyday, until one day she fell and broke her arm, and only then did she finally learn fūinjutsu.” 

Saika had been a genin then. Mito hadn’t told her the sealed wind release was the first trick every Uzushio child learned as they learned to write, at a much younger age. She should have realised Saika would have known regardless. In that she was a child of Uzushio: knowing the unknowable, hiding the knowledge from the world. That she had left for Uzushio was simply homecoming of the not-so-prodigal girl. But not Mito, tainted and bound by the Sage’s errant son as she was. 

Tsunade would not understand even if she explained. Konoha was the only home she knew, and she was its princess. “Yeah, well, she left. Baa-chan, why did you let her leave? The baby can’t even walk yet! And Otou-chan and Tobirama-ojiichan just died, but she walked away just like that!” 

Mito only shook her head. She couldn’t trust herself to speak, and not curse. The fox crooning in her ears wasn’t helping. 

Left alone, Tsunade would invent new curses for her mother, and deplorable deeds to have deserved them. Mito was not certain she would not endorse her. Candid answer, then. “Your mother needed to find that which she would die for… that which would make her a shinobi in your grandfather’s image.” That she chose now, after a lifetime of shunning the shinobi life, and now, as their family had just dwindled to the women and the young, she would leave for Tsunade to unsnarl when she was older. 

Tsunade’s eyebrow crunched in confusion, doubly so when Mito handed her the baby. The transfer woke Nawaki, and he started crying again, to his sister’s visible dismay. “Baa-chan,” she whined. 

“One day you too will see Uzushio.” Mito smiled as Tsunade frowned at the apparent non-sequitur. “Now, did you not want to stop his crying? This is the sound of one who is hungry. But first, let’s come inside; it is dark.” 


	2. Painting a Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito tries to teach her daughter fuuinjutsu, and something else

"Again." 

Saika slowly looked up, brush still on the paper and leaving a blot. There were times Mito suspected her daughter was playing the fool – there was, after all, no point in whipping a fool to excellence. 

Mito surpressed a sigh. Still patiently, she said, "Do you see what you did wrong?" 

Slowly did she blink at her work, then gasped and lifted the brush as though it had electrocuted her. This time, Mito did sigh. If nothing else, Saika was becoming an expert at removing ink stain from their furniture and sundry. "Yes, there's that. But what else?" 

"Um… My strokes aren't… perfect." 

"Must they be perfect?" asked Mito. No, that won't do, Mito thought as Saika's lips thinned. They'd been through this before; perhaps a different tactic was called for. 

Years of practice had made smiling on command easier, but perhaps it wasn't only Hashirama who was soft on their child. "Let's put down the brush for now." Saika obeyed, though bewildered. "Now, I want you to be honest with me. I wouldn't say a word. My dear, please be honest, do you no longer want to study fūinjutsu?" 

Saika fidgeted. Finally, she muttered, "But aren't you tired? You've been so busy since Otō-sama and Oji-sama left. Please go rest; I can practice on my own." 

"That does not answer my question," Mito said curtly. She _was_ tired after practically running Konoha single-handedly – until then she'd never understood exactly how much Hashirama and Tobirama liked to micro-manage the village. Saika's brand of teenaged petulance wasn't helping any. 

"Of course I want to learn fūinjutsu, Okā-sama," Saika said, smiling innocently. "It's the only discipline I'm even remotely good at, just maybe not as good as you were at my age. But as Oji-sama says, it's nothing a little practice wouldn't fix. Although… I don't quite understand why it has to be perfect. Does it matter as long as the product is functional? But I suppose that's why I'm not a master yet, and you are." 

Even so, Saika was becoming a master at something Mito didn't care to prod, at least not just yet. But fūinjutsu she could tackle. Mito explained, "And with that attitude, a novice fūinjutsushi seals her death. The grammar you use leaves little room for ambiguities. Unless you are content with dabbling in what toddlers could replicate with a piece of carbon paper, you will one day engrave your very intent with each stroke. There, in that space, hesitation is death, and worse. You will reduce what you do not intend to reduce, and what must not be reduced." 

Saika nodded slowly, as though she understood. Well, Mito hoped she understood: this and other things that were her heritage as an Uzumaki. It was a losing battle, she knew, even if her husband hadn't been the brightest star to ever walk the Elemental Countries, even if she hadn't been up against the appeal of continental shinobi's pragmatism. 

Mito slowly rose and gazed at the empty house. The two of them, and ANBU outside, and Hashirama and Tobirama at opposite ends of the earth… "I think I will rest now. Do not do anything foolish without me." 

"When have I ever, Okā-sama?" she said cheerfully, and bent her head once again, the very picture of a diligent student.


End file.
